Are Riots Being Planned for November 5?

"Police departments in cities across the country are beefing up their ranks for Election Day, preparing for possible civil unrest and riots after the historic presidential contest," reported The Hill, a Washington, D.C.-based newspaper and Internet site, on October 21.

The article continued:

Public safety officials said in interviews with The Hill that the election, which will end with either the nation's first black president or its first female vice president, demanded a stronger police presence.

Some worry that if Barack Obama loses and there is suspicion of foul play in the election, violence could ensue in cities with large black populations. Others based the need for enhanced patrols on past riots in urban areas (following professional sports events) and also on Internet rumors.

Similar articles have broached the issue and the Internet is rife with speculation about possible post-election violence.

One of the hints frequently pointed to is a statement by Democratic Party campaign strategist James Carville on CNN:

But you stop and contemplate this country if Obama goes in and he has a consistent five point lead and loses the election, it would be very, very, very dramatic out there.

Are ultra-radical elements planning nationwide riots in the event that Barack Obama loses the election? It certainly appears that the fires have been stoked and the dials pre-set for rage and violence if the "Messiah" does not win in this down-to-the-wire race in which most polls and media predictions have Obama beating McCain.

A McCain win, say many Obama supporters, would be intolerable not only because McCain is unacceptable but because it would be evidence of "another stolen election." It would be, they say, evidence of election fraud and disenfranchisement and intimidation of people of color. The official Obama campaign and its surrogates have been feeding this notion for months with angry accusations that Republican election officials have been targeting black and other minority voters to have them removed from the voter-registration rolls before election day. The Congressional Black Caucus, the NAACP, and the Obama campaign have charged election officials in Michigan, Ohio, and other states with trying to disenfranchise black voters.

To dramatize this alleged Republican conspiracy to disenfranchise ethnic minorities and steal the election from Obama, a coalition of far-left groups appealed to the United Nations on October 30 to intervene and send UN monitors to observe our November 4 elections.

More ominously, the same coalition, marching under the banner "No More Stolen Elections!," has issued a "Call to Action" calling for demonstrations on November 5. The "Call to Action" states:

The assault on American democracy in recent years has been so extreme and so consistent that, months before Election Day 2008, we already know what to expect.

Millions of Americans will be denied the right to vote.

Millions more will be prevented from voting for the candidate of their choice.

And with Black Americans [Barack Obama of the Democratic Party and Cynthia McKinney of the Green Party] leading two presidential tickets, the intentional suppression of voter turnout in communities of color will continue to be not just a threat but a virtual certainty as those who cannot win the Black vote seek to suppress it.

Recent experience and mounting evidence tell us beyond any reasonable doubt that powerful interests are prepared, at the very least, to attempt to steal another presidential election.

The "Call to Action" concludes by urging Americans to take the "Pledge of Action," which reads:

I remember Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004, and I am willing to take action in 2008 if the election is stolen again. I support efforts to protect the right to vote leading up to and on Election Day, November 4th. I pledge to join nationwide pro-democracy protests starting on November 5th, either in my community, in key states where fraud occurred, or in Washington D.C. I pledge: No More Stolen Elections!

What is of particular concern in all of this is the heavy concentration in the coalition of activists who have long histories of turning demonstrations into riots. The list of signatories accompanying the "Call to Action" include:

• Tom Hayden — founder of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), 1960s riot organizer, collaborator with the Vietcong and North Vietnamese communists during the Vietnam War, and continuing Marxist activist.

• Leslie Cagan — Militant lesbian, Marxist, feminist, professional activist; currently national coordinator of United for Peace and Justice, one of the nation's largest anti-war coalitions of far-left organizations; longtime member of the Communist Party USA and early member of the Venceremos Brigades that went to Cuba in the 1960s for communist training; left the CPUSA with other top communist leaders in 1991 to found a splinter group, the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism.

• Jesse Jackson — Founder and president of Rainbow/PUSH.

• Michael Lerner — SDS leader and a founder of the Seattle Liberation Front (SLF), an ultra-left terrorist organization that committed acts of bombing and sabotage; later became famous as publisher of Tikkun magazine and Bill and Hillary Clinton's guru on "the politics of meaning"; now an ordained rabbi promoting the same Marxist nostrums with a religious veneer.

• David Swanson — Washington Director of Democrats.com, board member of Progressive Democrats of America, and working-group member of Leslie Cagan's United for Peace and Justice.

On October 21, David Swanson posted this incendiary blog, adding kerosene to the "Call to Action":

A McCain "Win" Will Be Theft, Resistance Is Planned

If your television declares John McCain the president elect on the evening of November 4th, your television will be lying. You should immediately pick up your pre-packed bags and head straight to the White House in Washington, D.C., which we will surround and shut down until this attempt at a third illegitimate presidency is reversed....

We will see McCain supporters on November 4th challenging people's right to vote, seeking to force people to vote on provisional ballots, and seeking to have provisional ballots discarded. And we will see electronic vote counts wildly out of step with the most recent polls, although not with exit polls - which we will be denied any access to unless they have been "adjusted" to match the official counts.